Spirit in Action

Celebrating Renewable Energy and the MREA

The Energy Fair is the flagship event of the Midwest Renewable Energy Association (MREA) and Doug Stingle is their Development Director. Since 1990 the MREA has powerfully & joyfully spread the gospel of living better on the Earth, with flair and persistence.

Duration:: 55m
Broadcast on:: 01 Nov 2015
Audio Format:: other

[music] Let us sing this song for the healing of the world That we may hear as one With every voice, with every song We will move this world along And our lives will feel the echo of our healing [music] Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpsmeet. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred food in your own life. [music] Amazing things grow in the sometimes wintry wastes of Wisconsin, and among them is an organization called the MREA, the Midwest Renewable Energy Association. And other places might have their woodstocks and their Burning Man festivals, but each year, the third weekend of June, you can find the MREA's Energy Fair, and it's a high energy renewable event. We've been renewing itself for 27 years now. We're going to visit with Doug Stingle, who is MREA's Development Director, and he fully reflects the inspirational and infective enthusiasm for good living that cares for the earth, fully embodied in the people of the Midwest Renewable Energy Association. Doug Stingle joins us by Skype from Amherst, Wisconsin. Doug, thank you so much for joining me for Spirit in Action. Hi, Mark. Thanks so much for having me today. I enjoyed your talk. You were quick and to the point, and you had some really valuable things to say at the Affordable Solar Conference this past weekend, October 24th. We had the second one here in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Do you go around talking all the time to conferences like that? I assume the demand is there. Yeah, I actually do put quite a few miles on going around talking to conferences. So small independent conferences like this that are communities looking to enact solar or other sustainability measures, as well we have a program that we administer through the Midwestern Renewable Energy Association called our Power Pack. Through the Power Pack, we do our presentations, which are one hour long. Presentation is about the benefit of solar, so I've driven around and given those presentations in four different states throughout the Midwest. So, yeah, I put a lot of miles on, but it's all worthwhile and it's always great to go out and talk to people in their communities and see what they're working on when it comes to sustainability and renewable energy and see where I might be able to help them out. So it's really kind of my favorite part about my job is to go out and give these presentations at different conferences and events. And again, this is the MREA, the Midwestern Renewable Energy Association, which I believe is 27 years old. How does it look different now from what it was at the beginning? Oh goodness, it looks remarkably different. The whole organization started back in 1990. There was a magazine called Home Power Magazine, which is kind of the do-it-yourself magazine for renewable energy. If you want to learn how to install stuff or how to maintain solar systems or wind turbines, et cetera, on your home or business, Home Power Magazine is the one for you. And in it, their editor created an editorial that said, "Hey, we know that you're using renewable energy today." But the rest of the public doesn't know that. Why don't you go ahead and organize a fair or an energy event in your town or your area and kind of educate the rest of the community about the benefits of renewable energy and kind of network amongst yourselves. The editorial was actually published in 1989. And in 1990, a group of folks here in central Wisconsin and the Stevens Point Amherst area got together and decided that they were going to put on an energy fair. And so it was an all-vondelentier operation. There was no one was getting paid for this. And they were able to secure the location, which was the county fairgrounds here in Amherst. And then they went around to all of the churches and other organizations and the community and borrowed chairs and tents and tables and rounded all that stuff up that you would need to hold an event and put on the very first energy fair in August of 1990. Now, they were somewhat fortuitous in timing in that it was the same time that Saddam Hussein, actually in Iraq, invaded Kuwait. And if you remember back in the late '80s, early '90s, when that happened, there was a spike in gas prices. That spike in gas prices almost always results in interest into renewable energy. It's funny how we, when prices spike, we're always very interested in it. And when they go down, we tend to think less about it. But that spike happened right before the very first event and they brought out about 5,000 people for that weekend. We're able to make all of the money back, so there was no debt or anything associated with it. And in fact, got a little bit of a nest egg to go forward for the next year. And then they were able to secure a grant that allowed one staff member to come on and put on the energy fair that second year. Fast forward to today, and it's a much different event and a much different organization. We certainly maintain much of the spirit of that first event. Many of the folks that were there at the very first energy fair still come to the energy fair today. We've just grown much larger. And I think that's a good thing. The more folks we can get to come under the tent of sustainability and be able to learn more about how renewable energy or energy efficiency or other measures can benefit their lives is all the better. So the organization has grown up quite a bit since those days of volunteers that had put on that very first energy fair. And the one thing that we definitely try and do is maintain that spirit. The folks that did it 26 years ago, 27 years ago were do it yourself. Folks that really weren't going to wait for a solution to be presented for them. They were going to go out and find it and implement the solution that they wanted to. So we maintain that spirit even though we've grown to a staff of 17 and have offices in central Wisconsin where our headquarters is just outside of Stephen's Point. And now we have a Milwaukee office as well as we're just opening an office in St. Paul, Minnesota on November 1st. The fair still continues to be the third weekend in June, but now it's hosted actually on our campus here. You mentioned that there are 17 people's staff and that the first year with all volunteers, you had 5,000 people there, what's typical attendance these days? Typical attendance is around 15,000 people for the weekend. The energy fair is a three-day event. It runs Friday, Saturday and Sunday, always the third weekend in June. So you had to see that growth has been heartening. We did spike in attendance probably around 2008, 2009, where we brought in nearly 25,000 people for the weekend, but we've held steady to around 15,000 for the last four or five years. And what's your competitors in terms of this? First of all, for the Midwest, I assume there's not Midwestern Global Energy Association number two, within these Midwest states, or maybe you have sister and brother organizations around the United States, or is this a one-of-a-kind kind of thing? That's a good question. So when we started, we were one of the only events like this in the country. There were really two other ones that happened about the same, and one was out in California and another one was up in the Northeast, up in Vermont, I believe. I know the California one no longer exists, and I'm uncertain about the one in Vermont. However, when people come to the Energy Fair, they see what an amazing event it is, and they learn how they can go ahead and do this in their own communities. So we've seen since the first fair, we've seen a tremendous amount of local events spring up. And we think that's a good thing, because no one knows what your community wants more than the folks of that community. So the conference this last Saturday, Mark, that we were both at, I think that's kind of that type of event is made possible because of the Energy Fair and the folks that had the guts to put together the first one 26 years ago. So we have a lot of events like that that we see. There used to be an Energy Fair in Michigan. I'm not sure of its future. Definitely, it happened last year, but they've seen some flagging attendance and participation, so they're in a kind of up in the air about whether they're going to continue the event. But we're pretty unique in the Midwest to hold this event, and we're really, really lucky to be where we are in Central Wisconsin because we have this cadre of volunteers that put their life on hold for a week and come out and help us set everything up for the weekend and then help us tear it all down at the end of the weekend. And we certainly couldn't do it without those volunteers. So to have them here, we've been able to kind of build that over these last 20 years has been vital to our event continuing and being as successful as it is. Now when people think about MREA, they do think of the weekend, the third weekend in June. People head over to Amherst and have the Energy Fair complete celebration. I mean, it's food, it's entertainment. Well, you could probably list off 27 more attributes about it. The displays, the lectures, everything else. But the MREA is much more than that. If people want to get a good glimpse at the Energy Fair itself, you can just search on the NortonSpiritRadio.org website. Just search for Energy Fair or MREA. And back in 2007, I went and recorded a number of people and edited it together into two-part programs. So you'll catch a glimpse of the wealth of people who really show up for this thing. But MREA is more than the Energy Fair. We're going to come back and talk about the Energy Fair in a little bit. But what else do you do? I mean, obviously, you came out and talked to us in Eau Claire at the Affordable Solar Conference. What else do you do? You know, really, we've only got about two or three people that work on the fair year round. So as I mentioned, we've got 17 other folks that work on staff. And so we've got a lot of great programs that we work on. And our two biggest endeavors right now are the gross solar partnership, the gross solar Midwest partnership, which is funded in part by the U.S. Department of Energy as part of their Sunshot Initiative. And that program, we really work with communities to reduce the soft costs of solar. So in my presentation on Saturday at the Eau Claire Conference, I talked about how the price of the equipment has come down so much to the point where it's getting hard to really recognize any more reductions or any more savings in the equipment. So if we want to bring down the cost of installed solar systems, and these are solar electric systems. This is what the Department of Energy is interested in. And they have a goal through the Sunshot program to get the installed cost of solar electric systems down to $1 a watt. And today it's somewhere around $2.50. And when I started in this business back in 2007, it was about $8 to $11 a watt. So you can see that cost has come down so much. So the way that we can bring it down from that $2.50 to that $1 is through soft costs. And soft costs are permitting. You've got to go down to the city to get a permit for installing a solar array. You've got to then, after it's been installed, you have to have an inspector come. You've got to connect with your utility to do a process called interconnection. And so all of those things take time and resources, and we're working with different communities and different utilities to kind of come up with best practices that are going to allow them to reduce the time it takes to come out and inspect a solar system to reduce the time it takes to issue a permit. Maybe some smaller communities haven't even had to issue a permit yet, so they don't even know what that looks like. And that can cause a delay, which then adds cost to the overall system. So we're working to reduce those soft costs. So that's part of the initiative. And then we also host solar powering conferences in the Midwestern states kind of help those markets come together and explore possibilities for solar in their state and in their communities. So we've held them a solar powering Wisconsin conference, a solar powering Michigan conference, solar powering Minnesota conference, and a solar powering Illinois conference. And we have a solar powering Iowa conference on deck for March of 2016. So that brings the professionals, the solar professionals in those states, as well as different community actors together to be able to reduce that soft cost. So that's one avenue that we're working on, and it's a really large one, and a lot of our efforts go towards that. Another partnership and kind of an exciting idea that we've got is called the solar endowment. You may be heard of divestment campaigns that happen on university campuses where students or faculty or alumni are very interested in divesting the university's foundation or the university's investments out of the fossil fuel industry. We applaud them for that effort, but we want to see the next step. What's the next step? So if we divest, where should then we invest? We think universities should invest in solar power for their campuses, and so we're running this solar endowment project as well as the Solar University network with four pilot universities to scope out how and what would be best practices for them to install solar on their campus. So we partnered with the University of Minnesota, Missouri Science and Tech, Illinois State University, and Purdue University, and then we've also got some student-led teams at each one of the universities that are going to scope the actual project. So the solar endowment is a really unique program, and one that we're pretty excited to work on. And then outside of that, one other thing that we do is we host training courses. So if you want to learn about the technology of solar, whether that be a solar electric system or a solar water heating system that you would use to heat domestic hot water or potentially for space heating in your home or business, or a small-scale wind turbine, not the giant ones you might see down in Iowa or other places, but a smaller one that you would see at a home or a farm or something like that. We teach and train people how to install and maintain those type of systems, so you can take our introductory level courses online all the way up to the actual hands-on installation classes which we host either here at our headquarters, just outside of Stevens Point, or we've got a couple of different satellite locations where we can do that in Milwaukee and in Illinois near the Bloomington Normal area. So we kind of cover all aspects of it. We do the soft cost as well as we do the hardware and the actual training and installation of it. And all the while, the MREA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so we are beholden to our mission, and that is to educate people about renewable energy and sustainable living. So we do all of this under the guise that, yeah, we are a nonprofit and we have a membership base, so folks that are aligned with our mission and feel like we're doing good work, join us as members so that they can get all the good information that we have and are able to provide about what's happening in renewable energy and sustainability today. And then we also rely on the generosity of donations from folks so that we can continue to go out and spread the good word of renewable energy and sustainability. About how big is your membership? We have about 2,000 memberships, and some of those can be businesses, and some of those can be individuals, or they can be families. So we have about 2,000 memberships for about 4,000 to 5,000 people or members of our organization. From your website, it says that the Midwest Renewable Energy Association promotes renewable energy efficiency and sustainable living through education demonstration. The MREA is working to protect the environment by educating the public about appropriate use of natural resources to meet our energy needs. That is clear why it justifies the title of a 501(c)(3) organization. But I assume that a lot of your members are businesses. They're people working in the field. And I'm never quite sure which came first, you know, the horse of the cart. Did they start doing a business in that because they were concerned about the earth or did they get concerned about the earth? Does that come out of the kind of work they do? What's your take on the people involved in the organization? I would say it's probably a little bit of both. But I think it's primarily because folks have a passion for protecting the earth and protecting our natural resources. And that leads them then into a sustainability type business. So I certainly know many of the founders and many of their businesses of the MREA. That was really their passion. Now certainly as we've gone on through the years we have added folks that are just into business and instead of selling stuff and that's okay too. But I would say primarily folks are very motivated by their vision and their passion and understanding that renewable energy is our future. And what about you, Doug Stingle? Where did the development director for MREA? Where did you get your motivation to be part of this kind of work? I certainly didn't go to school for renewable energy. I went to the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. I got my degree in history and political science and actually got out of school and went to work in the Twin Cities as a project manager for a telecommunications company and then moved to Steven's point with my wife and started a job working as a project manager for a computer software company. And I had always really been interested in sustainability and renewable energy and local politics. So I got involved with a local political group in Steven's point. And started exhibiting at the Energy Fair with that organization. So that was really my first experience with the MREA was going to the Energy Fair and coming out to where I now work every day and attending that first Energy Fair. And I thought, "Wow, what an amazing event. What an amazing group of people that put this on." And so I continued to be concerned about clean energy, renewable energy, and the fact that we were not investing in those things as quickly as we should. And continuing to really hear excuses as to why not. And so a good friend of mine actually was working here at the MREA, Amy Hart, and her job was to run the Energy Fair. And so they had a position open for a membership and outreach coordinator. And I applied and was lucky enough to be able to get that job. And it was really a labor of love for me. I did leave a good position with lots of great benefits at a good company. And came here to work at a nonprofit for less of a wage because I really believe in the mission of the MREA. And I could see the good work that the organization was doing, even from just attending the Energy Fair. So I've been really privileged and honored to be able to work here. And every day when I see some of our success, it kind of keeps me going and keeps me motivated to be able to kind of expand the good word and spread the word about renewable energy. And going to speak at all these events where I get to meet people that have the same passions as I do about a clean energy future for my kids and my grandkids to meet those people really inspires me every day to continue to go out and do the best work that we can to motivate other people to see the advantages of clean energy and not just stick with the status quo because it's easy to stick with the status quo. We're speaking with Doug Stingle, he's the Development Director of the MREA, the MidWest Renewable Energy Association, their website Midwest Renew.org. We have a link on NortonSpiritRadio.org. And that is the website for Norton Spirit Radio, which Spirit in Action is one of the programs we produce. For Spirit in Action, we try and reach out to people making a positive difference in the world and explore the motivations and what supports and what pushes them forward into the future. Our website is NortonSpiritRadio.org and on that site you'll find more than ten years of our programs for free listening and download, including back in 2007, Spirit of Foot at the MREA Energy Fair. You'll find that on our site, you can listen to. Just a handful of people that I talked to when I was there but gives you an idea of the broad scope of what shows up at the Energy Fair. Also on our site, there's a place to leave comments, and we do love two-way communication. So when you visit our site, please post a comment. Let us know what you're thinking. There's also a place to donate. This is supported only by your donations. There's no commercial organization that's underwriting the cost of this program. We are doing this because we want to make the world better and we don't want to have other influences, and your donations free us to do that work. Even more though than supporting NortonSpiritRadio, I'd like to see you support your local community radio station. Community radio stations provide a slice of news and of music that you get nowhere else on American airwaves. The free flow of information makes such a difference in our world, and so please start by supporting your local community radio stations. Doug Stengel is here, Development Director for the Midwestern Novable Energy Association. I just saw him this past weekend at the Affordable Solar Conference held here in Eau Claire on the 24th of October. You presented a whole lot of information as part of your presentation at that conference, Doug, and I understand that that's just a small section of what you normally share with the world. I want to get into a little bit of that detail, but first I want to talk more about the energy fair. Let's hear your description of the event as opposed to what people are going to hear if they go back and listen to those programs from 2007 when I was there. Who do you say shows up for that? It is a cross section of the American population that shows up to the energy fair. A lot of them certainly in the early years were folks that maybe were not directly involved in mainstream society. They were folks that were trying to build their own vision in their own future, and that's really, like I have said before, is what gave us our passion and our mission, and then we moved to today where we have folks that maybe even show up in a suit or a business attire where very quickly they are identified as folks coming to the energy fair for the first time. Because the energy fair, unlike any other big conferences and outdoor event, all under tents, so when folks show up in a suit or something, I definitely know it's their first time or their coworkers have told them that that's what they have to wear. There's a large solar company, and they had a new staff person, and they told them he asked what the attire should be, and so they told them, "Oh, it's business. This is a business meeting we're going to be working in." So he showed up in his suit for the first day of the energy fair, and all of his colleagues were in shorts and flip-flops and polo shirts, and so they all had a pretty good laugh about that. But it's really anyone that's going to be interested in saving energy or saving money. I mean, that's really what sustainability is all about, right? It's whether we're going to save energy because we're going to grow our own vegetables, or we're going to go with an energy-efficient light bulb, or we're going to install solar on our house, and all of those things are going to be ways that we can save money in our lives, too. It's always going to be cheaper for us to generate our own electricity. It's cheaper for us to save our energy. It's cheaper for us to grow our own tomato in our backyard. So these are the kind of folks that come to the energy fair. They come because we've got over 200 workshops that go on through the course of the weekend. They can learn about how to grow a guard there on their deck if they live in an apartment. They can learn how to save seeds so that they can have their garden next year. They can learn about how maybe they can install the solar array on their home, or how to build their own electric motorcycle. Really the educational opportunities at the fair are endless, and that brings in folks that have a lot of varied interests into the energy fair. So the tent gets bigger, and I'd say we get a real cross-section of the population of the U.S. that comes, and we get people from throughout the country that come. Not just Wisconsin, but folks from throughout the Midwest and throughout the country. We put up a little map usually at the front and say, "Hey, put a pinion where you're from." And so the majority of folks are from Wisconsin, but I think we generally get people from over 40 states to come to the fair every year. Just a couple of years ago we had 48 states, and the only two we didn't have were Hawaii and Mississippi. Because they have plenty of solar already over in Hawaii and Mississippi, what they were probably buried in oil at the time, from the rig that blew out. Yeah, that's very true. It was about that time actually. One of the keynotes I heard, for instance, was Judith Levine, and she's author of a book, Something About My Year Without Shopping, which people don't necessarily correlate that with putting a solar unit on your house, but it's so crucial in terms of how we live and how we expend energy. Frances Moore Lapé was your keynote one year. She's famous for her book of vegetarian cooking, a diet for a small planet, recipes for a small planet. What criteria does the group look toward to pick out your main speakers? We're looking for people that are inspiring. We definitely want to be inspired by those people and then have them bring their inspirational message to the audience of the energy fair. And then we also kind of look for what's popular today. What are folks talking about? Because we want to be able to bring them timely information from these inspirational speakers. So we have had some really amazing people come and speak, and so I'll just use last year as an example of our 2015 energy fair. Our keynotes were Amy Goodman from Democracy Now. And her work talking about campaign finance reform, dark money, that is influencing our political system today. And her general independent reporting on what is happening in society today in America was incredibly important. We also had John Wellinghoff, who was the former chairman of FERC, which is the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee. And we had him come in and speak because he had written many articles and papers about what our electrical grid is should look like in the future. You know, no one knows what our electrical grid looks like more than John Wellinghoff. Having been the chairman of FERC, he understands all of these energy issues. And he had written some columns about utilities of the future. What are the utilities of the future going to look like? And then really kind of about the way that they operate today. Are they going to continue to build people for energy used? Or are they going to be able to shift things over to fixed charges? And so that's a fight actually where Wisconsin is on the forefront. We've had several large utility companies in the state put forward proposals that will radically change the way customers are billed for energy. Meaning we used to pay a very small fixed charge, a very small monthly charge, every month on our bill, and then we would pay an energy charge for the energy that we consumed. And in that energy charge was the actual energy that the company either bought or created, as well as all the things that go along with it. The lines, the transformers, the buildings that the company owns, the customer service representatives, et cetera. And that's the way we've operated and run utility pricing in the state of Wisconsin for a long time, for as long as the public service commission's been around. And so the utilities today in an era of declining energy sales want to radically change that and shift it to be primarily from a monthly charge as opposed to having all those costs associated with the energy that you purchase. So the utility where I live, we've gone in the last three years. We've gone from $4 a month up to $25. The $25 is in front of the public service commission right now. So an incredibly radical change that most people might not understand or even understand the full scope of it. What it really means to them and what it really means is the more energy you use, your bill is more likely to go down. The less energy you use, your bill is likely to go up because you can't put in an LED light bulb or put in a solar array to lower that fixed charge. So we wanted to bring John in, John Wellington, to talk about those particular issues about how important they are. And then our last keynote speaker this year was a -- this last year was Athena Diffley and she's an organic farmer from Minnesota. And the Koch brothers wanted to build a pipeline across her farm. And she took them to court and won. So she beat the Koch brothers and so we wanted to have her inspirational story where, you know, there's a small organic farmer can beat one of the richest corporations in the world. So, you know, that's -- I think it's a pretty good snapshot of how we decide what sort of keynote speakers we're going to go after for the fair. But we have had an impressive resume of folks. We've had Josh Fox, the gentleman who made the movie Gasland. We wanted to have him come and talk about fracking because that's an incredibly important topic as we are in our natural gas boom and we see the effects of fracking as it happens to local water supplies as well as here in the state of Wisconsin folks that are affected by sand mining. A lot of wonderful folks you just mentioned there. I have had Athena Diffley on my show right after her book came out. What is it? Turned here, Sweet Corn, or I think that was the name of the book. And to be successful in fighting someone like the Koch brothers. And make precedent law. And of course, end up affecting your neighbors because they say, "Oh, this organic stuff gets certain things done that commercial stuff can't get done." It's just pretty inspirational stuff. One thing that you talked about in the course of that dug was the base cost being raised up, the fixed cost that we pay as part of our electric. And I happen to live where Eau Claire Energy co-op is providing my electrical energy. And their fixed cost is high like what you're saying. Whereas XL is still pretty low. The increasing, as you said from $4 to $25 in your case, is there some justification in terms of the cost of the infrastructure? That is to say, is it possibly because they're putting out down new wires or, you know, anything that would justify that as opposed to, well, we want to make sure we get your money even if you put solar on your house. That's a very astute question. And I think you're really kind of getting to the heart of the matter with that question. And I'll just back us up and get to the point where, you know, around World War II, we had these large utilities that served primarily the large cities. And after that, you know, people that were in rural areas, the utilities really declined to offer service to them because it was really expensive to run wires. So the federal government ran a rural electrification program. And that's really where all of the rural electric co-ops came out of. An electric co-op in a rural setting definitely has higher costs when it comes to wires and transmission and that stuff, just because it's much more expensive to serve, you know, five customers on a road on a couple mile long road as opposed to an apartment building that has, you know, three to four hundred people in it that live in a city. It's much more expensive to service those folks that are spread out so far. So inherently an electric co-op in a rural setting is going to have a little bit higher costs like that. And a co-op is also then not ruled by or is that under the jurisdiction of the Public Service Commission, let's say. So they have a membership and a board of directors. Their membership votes to seat a board of directors and then the board of directors really oversees the company. So co-ops have a more democratic type structure. The utilities that I'm talking about that are taking this action and kind of leading this charge in the state are investor-owned utilities, meaning they are publicly traded entities on the New York Stock Exchange and their number one priority really is to return a dividend to their shareholders, not to serve their customers. So the reason that they want to, I think the ones that are proposing it today, the reason that they want to do it is because they want to get their money, as you said. Because in 2008 we became a country and a state that all of a sudden electric sales declined both from energy efficiency measures as well as the recession that happened in 2008, there is a tremendous decline in the need for electricity. So you want to make sure as a investor-owned utility that you are able to return a healthy dividend to your stockholders, and if people aren't buying as much electricity, you've got to figure out a way to bring that money in. And this is their solution. And it's fine that they can have that solution, but we have to have an agency that regulates that and decides, is that what's best for all of the customers and consumers in the state of Wisconsin? And because these are monopolies, that's where the Public Service Commission comes in. There are surrogate, let's say, for competition. When the Public Service Commission wholeheartedly puts forward the idea that this is a good solution and this is good public policy, then I think we have a problem because it's not. In the state of Wisconsin, we have an Energy Priorities Act, and I think that oftentimes our Public Service Commission and maybe several of our politicians like to forget that that law is on the books because the number one priority when it comes to energy is going to be energy conservation and efficiency. And then we talk about non-combustible renewable energy. That's the second. So those are our first two priorities in the Wisconsin Energy Priorities Law, and they're often discarded because if we're talking about changing the infrastructure, the way that the utilities have proposed, they're actually disincentivizing conservation and efficiency. So it's a fundamental shift in the way that the state regulates utilities and the way that utilities interact with the customer. And I think it's wrong, and I think it's wrong for the direction of the state of Wisconsin, and I would hope that folks that agree with me certainly speak up and tell their utility that they don't like it, tell the Public Service Commission that they don't like the direction this is going. And then I would take it to your local officials. Start with your congressmen or congresswoman, your senator, and all the way down to county board, city council, because these county boards and city councils can have a great effect. When you, as a customer, talk to an investor on utility, you have very little say. But if you are able to amplify that by working with folks at your community where the community is saying, "Hey, we don't like this," that's going to have a potential for change in different communities. And we've seen this. In the city of Madison, the investor on utility there, Madison Gas and Electric, had a proposal to shift this rate design with the increased fix fees, and customers there got together, created a concerted voice against it, and the utility recognized this, and backed off that proposal, and then actually started to have conversations with the community about what they would like their energy portfolio to look like and how they would like to be built. So it was really kind of a success story, I would say. But really only it's happened in Madison, the rest of the state is kind of on our own, let's say. And so we need these people that, we need people to be able to move forward and we need them to connect with the others in their community and build this unified voice to push this forward to really try and stop this radical change of the way that energy is sold and bought in the state of Wisconsin. I wanted to go back to a few things that have occurred to me along the way. One is that the energy fair, it's really a rich assortment of things. It's not just the newest solar panels. I mean, there's someone there with, here's your solar oven, and you can buy one and find one. And maybe you'll find how to make candles out of local beeswax instead of, I mean, there's any number of things that help provide a brighter energy future for Wisconsin and for the Midwest, for the U.S., for the world. When people come to the energy fair, do you have any sense of what percentage of them are coming for the exciting new technology as opposed to maybe old technology, which already was more energy efficient than anything that we do currently? That's a really interesting question. I think less people come today for the latest and greatest in solar technology. And that's not to say that there aren't some exciting things, but the technology itself is fairly, it's been fairly similar for the last 30 years. You know, the solar panels, they look almost the same as they did 30 years ago. They're just a little bit more efficient, and they work a little bit better. And that's not visually able to see. So I think that folks are coming really to kind of understand the easiest, simplest ways that they can save energy and money. And for some folks, that's installing a solar system. For other folks, it's looking at LED light bulbs. It's looking at growing their own food because, you know, there's a lot of carbon footprint for food that we buy that's coming from South America or California or Florida, wherever it might be that that food has grown far away and brought back here. And so people are really interested in that type of thing. One thing I've definitely noticed in the makeup of the fair is the beginning days where folks that would install their own solar arrays, and they would come to the energy fair to buy parts. They'd buy solar modules, they'd buy inverters, they'd buy batteries, they'd buy charge controllers, and all of that stuff. And they'd come just to buy it and they'd carry around their wagon and fill up their wagon with all of that stuff and take it home and then install it themselves. And as we've grown, that component of the fair has shrunk dramatically to the point where we've got lots of great installation companies that would be able to come and put a solar array on your home or your business for you. There's still a corner for those folks that do it yourself, but that segment of the overall energy fair audience, I would say, has shrunk, which I think is good because we really need to take renewable energy conservation and energy efficiency mainstream. It really needs to be there. That's where we get the most change, where we get that hope for the future for my kids and my grandkids that we're not going to be burning coal and we're not going to be using nuclear reactors that have an unsafe fuel supply or an unsafe result of that fuel supply when we've got radioactive waste that we've got to monitor and manage for the next hundred of thousands of years. So that's why I think we've got to definitely move it into the mainstream and why I think it's incredibly important that we bring in as many people as we can and not just those do-it-yourself folks anymore. I've got two more main questions to ask you, Doug, and I'm undecided which direction I want to do them in. Let me see. I guess I'm going to ask the overall philosophical question about the world first. I've been seeing over the last couple years that particularly because of deciding to go away from nuclear power that there's been this increased investment in some of the European countries, Germany foremost, I guess. I think Scotland may be in this too, where they've been able to switch over and install so much alternative energy sources that not only do they not miss the nuclear power that they're shutting down, but that they, on some days at least, produce all of their energy from renewable sources. Now, I don't know if that's hype, but when I hear about the plans in the United States, they're saying, well, by 2030, maybe we can get 20% of our energy from renewables. Why the big discrepancy? Is it just because there's too much hype coming about those changes happening in Europe or is there something in which the U.S. really is lagging behind badly? Yeah, well, this is a good question. The U.S. is lagging behind badly. I think that that has to do with a couple of different factors. The first one I'll just get out of the way is we don't really have a national energy policy. It's pretty much left up to the states to decide upon what their energy policy is going to be. So that instead of one national energy policy, we tend to have 50 different ones. And they can be either progressive or regressive, and they're all over the board. I mean, one only has to look at the difference between Wisconsin and Minnesota today to really see that example playing out Wisconsin is changing the way that we build customers. We've seen a drop in renewable energy installations. We've not seen a new wind project, a new wind farm come online since 2011. When we move over to Minnesota, we see that they're one of the top five wind-producing states in the country. They've got a new Solar Energy Jobs Act that was passed in 2013. That's going to bring over 400 megawatts of solar onto their grid. So they've taken a different path. So I think that that is a little different. So when we look for success stories in the U.S., we've got to look at it at a state level, generally not a country-wide level. And the second is that the fossil fuel industry, the second reason we haven't, is the fossil fuel industry is the largest and most powerful force in the world right now. They have more money, and they spend that money to influence political will more than any other type of special interest in the country. So we see that continually here in our electoral politics. We look at where oil, coal, and gas companies give money, and they give lots of money to politicians who then therefore want to continue with the way things are. So we look at other countries and we see the success and the progressiveness of their policies. But also there can be an advantage for us, I guess, in being laggards, as in we'll be able to learn from the mistakes that they've made. And I like to think of it that way, because eventually we're going to get there, and hopefully we'll have learned from some of the mistakes that they've made, but we're taking our sweet time as we get there. And we should look to other countries for an example of success. And you're right on sunny, windy days, Germany is an exporter of energy. They have more energy than they know what to do with. They send it out to other countries. But they've also hit some roadblocks and some stumbling blocks. And so like I said, we can learn from some of those mistakes, and I think that's good, and we can have a smart electrical grid in a smart electrical future. The way that our electrical grid exists today is the same as it was 100 years ago. And if we reanimated Thomas Edison, brought him back today, he'd be able to look at it and say, "Oh, yeah, I totally understand that. That's exactly how I designed it over 100 years ago." So we need to think about the future, and we need to think about how we can -- we use distributed energy resources in our electrical grid because the way it exists today, it's incredibly inefficient. We generally burn coal, which is shipped over -- and certainly Wisconsin, as an example -- where I live, we burn coal that's been shipped to us from Wyoming to be able to bring to a large centralized power plant. So the power I get at my house outside of my solar modules, because I do have solar on my house, comes from a power plant 35 miles north of me. And as the power that's generated runs down those electrical lines to get to us, half of it is lost. And so we're generating twice as much electricity as we need because it is lost in the transmission. So I think what's really interesting in what I would encourage your listeners to check out is what the state of New York is doing, and they're creating this rev process, which is the reimagining the energy vision. They want to bring more clean energy on to their electrical grid. They want to be able to open it for third-party innovation, meaning like a smart thermostat or smart energy controls at your home, so you'd be able to, you know, turn off your water heater. Maybe you forgot to turn it off, and you're all the way in Canada, or you're in Europe or something, you'd be able to get on your smartphone, be able to turn that off so that you're not wasting that energy, those types of things. And then New York is very interested in resiliency. After Hurricane Sandy, there were spots in New York State in New York City that didn't have electricity for two months after that. And so the idea of large centralized power plants supplying power for everyone, they're looking to get rid of, or looking to adapt from, and they have a more distributed electrical grid so that resiliency is better. You know, if one big power plant gets taken out, everyone gets taken out, but if it's one small one, it's just a small area affected. So I would encourage folks to check out what New York is doing in their rev process. And maybe it'll happen here in Wisconsin before too long because the MREA has its central offices over there by Amherst, Wisconsin. One more thing I wanted to ask you about, Doug, and again, we've already heard part of Doug Stingles' path to working with the MREA. And, you know, you left a job, you actually took, in essence, a pay cut to do what you really believe in. I think that you have volunteers and a board made up of people just so deeply motivated. One of them over the years, I know, has been Mark Morgan, who's one of my very good friends here. So he constantly has put in my ear the MREA and the energy fair, and he, you know, I know each June he's there setting up and doing talks and expanding a vast amount of energy so people can save energy. Could you talk about some of the other board members or volunteers that you have so we can get a real snapshot of who are the people making this happen? Yeah, and you're right, Mark. Mark Morgan is an inspiration to us all at the MREA. There's quite literally, I think, several years of the energy fair where Mark Morgan put the entire fair on his back and carried it. Meaning he hauled all the materials and then figuratively because he was there and he was always providing motivation and inspiration and guidance to folks that are running the event as well as all of the folks that are attending the event. So Mark Morgan has been a rock for us and certainly the fair of the MREA wouldn't be where it is today without him. There are some other great folks that have done that too, a gentleman by the name of Nick Zagrilo, who is one of the founding members of the organization. He's one of the leading small wind experts in the state with on our board of directors for nearly 20 years and put a lot of time and effort in his life into expanding the MREA, expanding the training programs here so that they are nationally recognized training programs and some of the leading training programs for renewable energy in the country. I know I'm going to leave people out because there are so many, but Bob Ramlow and his wife, Marguerite, they were two of the founding members of the MREA. They had a snowbelt solar, it was called, was the name of the company that they used to own. And today now they own an earth of sustainable living center where they have a bed and breakfast. They teach classes on solar water heating as well as Marguerite is a yoga instructor so they have a lot of different yoga classes. There are some amazing folks in our community. Christopher Forge, he's up by a near bay field. He was one of the leaders in our organization when it came to solar electric technology. I think of John Baldis, who as a profession is a nurse, but every June takes a week off of his life and comes to the energy fair and does all of our parking for us. He's run parking from the first energy fair until this last 26th one, and hopefully he'll be back again next year. He hasn't told us he wouldn't be, but I mean I think about these folks that put a lot of their life on hold and have put a lot of energy into the MREA because they do see the value in the mission. I'll mention B.J. Welling, who was one of those very first, he was the guy who read the editorial and home power and said, "Hey, we should do something about it." And then got that group together and his wife Carol Welling, who was the very first fair director, unpaid, totally volunteer. And she was the director of that very first energy fair. Mark Klein is another one I'd like to mention. He is one of the owners of Gimme Shelter Construction. He was our vice president on our board of directors for many, many years and one of those people that was in that room and those first meetings. And then not only the board, the volunteers that are here, but the staff that's come before us too. Folks have given so much of their lives to this mission. It's a really inspirational opportunity to be able to be around folks that do give so much of themselves. We're really blessed with the folks that are here. We are truly blessed in this. There's so much information you could have shared today. There's a lot of technical and statistical info, like the astounding rate at which solar power is growing in the Midwest and in the country in general. And how the costs of solar technologies are dropping among the rich data and insights you provided last weekend at Eau Claire's second affordable solar conference. If you listeners want to hear the whole story, I'm sure you could arrange to have Doug Stingle come and speak by contacting the MREA. Find the contact info on their website midwest renew.org links on Nordenspiritradio.org of course. And hopefully you'll show up in Amherst, Wisconsin at the MREA's Energy Fair on the third weekend of 2016 for an unforgettable experience. Doug, thank you for following your deep calling and taking the post with the MREA. Even with the pay cut, it included less monetary pay, but more spiritual reward. I thank you and the other board staff and volunteers for the MREA for inexorably moving this country in the right direction, transforming the way we build and live our lives. Thank you for your crucial part in the work of the MREA, and thanks for joining me today for Spirit in Action. It is my pleasure, Mark, and thank you so much for having me on. A reminder, folks, to track down Doug Stingle via the MREA's website midwest renew.org to tap into the force of change that is the MREA. Thanks to Andrew Janssen for production help with today's program, and we'll see you next week for Spirit in Action. The theme music for this program is Turning of the World, performed by Sarah Thompson. This Spirit in Action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website northernspiritradio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host, Mark Helpsmeet, and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is Spirit in Action. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along, and our lives will feel the echo of our healing. (upbeat music)